When R&B singer/songwriter Estelle brought her brand of girly hip-hop to the states last summer via her Kanye West collab, "American Boy," she earned herself a heavy-rotation radio spot--and a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. The Brit import chats with ELLE on her potty-mouth, Kanye's ego, and, ah, love.

ELLE: What sort of misconceptions do Americans have about you being a British hip-hop artist?

Estelle: People think, Oh, she's from London, she shouldn't swear! They think we should walk around drinking cups of tea with our fingers out. They think I should have a bowler hat. Meanwhile, I'm more like Grace Jones than Audrey Hepburn. And I'm like, Come to my fuckin' shows! Come see how much I swear at my show. And then they get turned off, and it's like, Well, it's real life, man. This is how I feel today. And I feel like swearing 10 times more than I did yesterday.

ELLE: Kanye West helped launch your career. What do you think of his outspoken approach toward the industry?

E: Kanye has a healthy ego. I don't think badly of him for believing the way he believes. At home, it's hard to be successful unless you're doing it on the approved system's terms. Here it's like, if you've done well, you've done well. Fuck it, celebrate. [So] why is everyone mad at Kanye for it? Isn't this the country where you're supposed to do it? Be happy, toot your own horn, and mow the lawn every week.

E: My best performance was at the Grammys. Literally two minutes before walking onstage, I had gum on my shoe, I bumped my head, and this lady was talking at me incessantly, like, Oh, you have gum on your shoe! Oh, you hit your head! Like giving me a play-by-play of everything that was going wrong as it was going wrong. Clive Davis was sitting to my left, and it was just a moment of pure, sheer terror. And then I get up and I was like, Well, shit can't go wrong now because I think it all went wrong like two minutes [ago]. I think it was one of my most perfect performances.

ELLE: You've written several songs about relationships gone wrong and admitted it's all from your own life. Care to comment?

E: Mostly it's from the succession of crazy men I dated, four different crazy guys in a row—special beings—in the space of four years. I was just like, Come on! Something's gotta give! And then I started to think, like, is it me? You know, you fall into a pattern and you kind of have to break out of it and stop going for the guy who's needy, stop going for the guy who needs bringing up, stop going for the guy who's broke—because that's the kind of man who's been around your life the whole time. It was [about] breaking that pattern and seeing where I was going wrong and why I was picking these guys.

ELLE: So would you say you're jaded about love?

E: No, I'm the eternal optimist. There are some great men out there. I think I've met one!